Paul Ryan: When Will You Look At the Facts About the Deficit?

In his crusade to reach the White House, Paul Ryan published another piece of phony history and econoomics last week. The Wisconsin Republican authored Why No One Expects a Strong Recovery:

He and his ultra-conservative cohort, Representative Jeb Hensarling (R - Texas) explain that we have to get back to Reagan's economics and that the Democrats are a disaster for the economy:

Why all the pessimism? The source appears to be a growing fear that the federal government is retreating from the free-market economic principles of the last half-century, and in particular the strong growth policies that began under Ronald Reagan. A review of the economic policies instituted by President Barack Obama and the Democratic-controlled Congress lends credibility to this concern...

...Anyone who believes the Democratic Party's recently expressed concern over the deficit should look at the relentless growth of spending on its watch. Total nondefense spending set an all-time record this year—20.2% of GDP—double federal spending as a percentage of GDP during the height of the New Deal in 1934

The problem, Mr. Ryan, is the facts.

As any fifth grader can tell you, the greatest federal budget deficit as a percentage of the GNP since World War II was the Reagan deficit. It was erased by Bill Clinton and then eclipsed by George W. Bush. It usually takes 2-3 years for a President's economic policies to take hold.

Republicans start these problems and Democrats get us out of them. Unfortunately, sometimes the Democrats need more than a year or two to fix a problem the Republicans created in eight years.

Notice that dip before 1980? That was Jimmy Carter's third year. The peak before was the height of Nixon's second term.  

Notice the surplus before and through the year 2000? Yup. That was Bill Clinton.

Comments

[anon]

The Republican deficit is caused by tax reductions and the democrat "dip" as you call it is caused by tax increases. However, neither party does a very good job for the people.

[anon]

Where's the timeline/tracking line for war/military spending on this graph?

[Jon]

We've had 30 years of damage to this country from Voodoo Economics. It will take more than 10 months to clean it up

[R.J.]

It will take 30 years to undo 11 months of Obamanomics.

[Brian]

The best federal budget since World War II was one of Gerald Ford's because it had, as a percentage of the budget, the least amount of spending on attacking other countries (typically known by most as the Defense Department) and the most on social spending.

And R.J. Obamanomics is very similar to Bush and Clinton "nomics". All three are rabid free trading, free marketers.

[4Real]

I think anon brings up a great point. Carter was such a Nancy that he was ready to put on a nice red dress and let the Soviets do anything they wanted to us. Defense spending under Carter hit an all-time low. By the time the great Reagan came into office, our military was in very poor shape and we had lost a lot of clout on the world stage while the Soviets had ascended. Reagan increased defense spending and actually placed America on a path to defeating the Soviets. It's easy to put together a chart that suggests one point of view as being accurate. Is it possible that spending, as a percent of GDP, could have increased in the 80s due to recessionary factors stemming from Carter's bad policies? Is it possible that this figure also rose in the early 2000s due to the dot com bubble, recessionary factors, and wars? Oh, and I don't want to hear any crap about war mongering. Americans have shed more blood freeing other countries from cruel, blood thirstly dictators than any other nation on Earth, asking only in return for sufficient land to bury its dead.